Fitbit: A Mobile Body-Monitoring System

Health & Beauty:

Although you may always feel like someone is watching you, the end result could turn out to be a great $99 investment toward improving your overall wellness. Fitbit is a mobile electronic accessory that is as easy to tote around as a cell phone, as it keeps track of the way you do the things you do.

Being small and light, a Fitbit can be worn around the waist (it comes with a belt), placed in a pocket, or clipped to undergarments. The mobile tracking device has the same type of 3-D motion sensor as used in the Nintendo Wii®. This is what enables it to track calories burned, number of steps taken, and total distance traveled without beeping buzzing, or attracting unwanted attention. It is even capable of measuring quality of sleep at night, when worn with its accompanying sleep wristband.

It is not magical, so there is some data entry required by a user to count those dirty little calories. However, there is a database with more than 50,000 types of food that makes counting calories both simple and convenient. While asleep, the Fitbit tracks body movement, which offers insight on how long it took to fall asleep and overall restful sleep time.

A wireless base station also is included. When the Fitbit is placed near its base station, it will upload stats to your personal account on Fitbit.com. Up to 30 days of information can be stored. The account on Fitbit.com is free and syncing software is required. A fully charged unit last five to 10 days. The system works on both PCs and Mac computers.

While Fitbit does not guarantee that you will change, it will keep you better informed on what's going on. For more information, visit Fitbit.com .